The Polk Signa S1 is a no-frills soundbar that offers very good performance for an affordable price.

Soundbars don't have to be big and expensive to produce quality audio. The Polk Signa S1 is a simple $199.99 soundbar and wireless subwoofer pair that offers everything you could reasonably want from a budget sound system. While it doesn't have HDMI connectivity or Dolby Atmos, it does feature Bluetooth audio streaming and capable simulated surround. More importantly, it simply sounds very good for the price by generating a large, dynamic sound field that serves music and movies both very well. That earns it our Editors' Choice for affordable soundbars.

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Design

The S1 looks small and unassuming. The soundbar portion is a simple, all-black rectangle measuring 2.1 by 35.3 by 3.3 inches (HWD), with the front and most of the top completely covered by a black cloth grille with a small silver-colored Polk logo on the far right. The grille hides a set of four colored LEDs in the front-center that serve as visual indicators for power, volume, and source.

Five small, circular buttons rest on the top of the soundbar, just behind the grille's edge: Bluetooth, power, source, volume up, and volume down. The back holds the S1's power connector and optical and 3.5mm audio inputs on two indentations angled outward. A pair of keyhole mounts let you hang the soundbar on a wall.

The wireless subwoofer is even more blocky and simple than the soundbar. While the soundbar has a slight curve on the front to prevent it from looking too much like a basic black rectangle, the subwoofer is little more than a box measuring 13.5 by 6.6 by 12.2 inches. The front is covered in grille cloth with a glossy black cutout for the bass port, the only part that isn't a flat surface or 90-degree angle. The back holds only a power connector, a green power LED, and a sync button.

The included remote is a short, wide wand (4.7 by 1.7 by 0.7 inches) with several more useful controls than the five on the soundbar itself. It features individual rockers for both master volume and bass, along with a mute button and dedicated source buttons for aux, Bluetooth, and optical. Two rows of three buttons provide access to different audio modes and voice enhancement settings: the top row of three lets you choose between Movie, Music, and Night sound modes, while the bottom offers three levels of Polk's Voice Adjust feature.

Features and Connectivity

The S1 doesn't get too fancy, but it has a few handy features. The most useful is Bluetooth connectivity, which lets you stream music wirelessly to the system from your smartphone, tablet, or other Bluetooth device. It's become a common feature on soundbars, but it's still good to see on a budget system.

You can't expect advanced audio features like Dolby Atmos on a $200 soundbar. Fortunately, good old-fashioned Dolby Digital decoding and conventional 5.1-channel simulated surround are present, and they work well. You can't get a real surround sound experience without separate satellites for the rear channels, so the S1 (and any other satellite-less soundbar) won't provide particularly accurate directional imaging outside of the front three channels. However, the simulated surround lets it generate a very large sound field, giving the sense that audio is coming from all around the room and not just the individual drivers on the soundbar itself.

Music Performance

Thanks to the wireless subwoofer, the S1 can put out some appreciably powerful sound. The subwoofer provides strong sub-bass performance, providing solid rumble when dealing with ultra low frequencies. Our bass test track, The Knife's "Silent Shout," nearly shook the walls of our test room at higher volume levels, though the subwoofer's 5.25-inch driver didn't quite get everything in the room rattling like we've seen with soundbars with more power and larger drivers. And while the soundbar didn't distinctly crackle, it flirted with distortion with the track's bass drum hits at the highest volume.

More treble-oriented music is handled well, as heard in the mash-up of Hot Butter's "Popcorn" and Drowning Pool's "Bodies" from Neil Cicierega's "Mouth Sounds." Dave William's growly nu-metal screeching comes through with excellent clarity against the Moog synthesizer bloops. This track doesn't have a ton of low end to work with, but higher volume levels get the subwoofer rumbling a bit to really fill the room.

Movie Performance

Pacific Rim on Ultra HD Blu-ray sounds fairly big and booming on the S1, though the subwoofer doesn't quite shake the architecture to really give the sense of giant monsters stomping around. The soundbar itself sounds large and well-balanced, letting the epic soundtrack come through with plenty of power while giving voices enough clarity and edge that they're easy to discern in the mix. The floor around the subwoofer slightly vibrates with the crashing of kaiju and slamming of giant metal doors, but it doesn't put enough power behind the deepest lows to provide the sort of tangible rumble that can really make action movies pop.

Watchmen has fewer giant monsters, so it sounds very good on the S1 even without overwhelming subwoofer power. The soundbar provides clear frequency response across the board, giving traffic noises, the sound of rain, and dialogue plenty of presence even when mashed together in the mix. It's an appropriately loud sound, with the rain filling the room with crisp drops when not intentionally muted by the film to give Rorschach's narration more weight.

Comparisons and Conclusions

If you're willing to spend more for slightly better sound in a one-piece, subwoofer-free design, the Sonos Playbase is another very good option. It costs far more than the S1 and shares the same ultra-low frequency weakness if you don't get the optional $700 subwoofer, but it still sounds excellent on its own and virtually disappears under your television. It also integrates easily with other Sonos speakers for multi-room sound systems, and you can pair it with two Sonos Play:1 speakers as rear channel satellites for true surround. Alternately, the Zvox Soundbase 570 provides similarly great sound in the same sound slab form factor as the Playbase for just $100 more than the S1, and also includes Bluetooth connectivity.

The Polk Signa S1 isn't an overwhelmingly powerful or particularly complicated soundbar, but at $200, it doesn't have to be. While the subwoofer could stand to offer more power in the deepest lows, the soundbar itself sounds clean and balanced for both music and movies, and its wireless connectivity lets you stream music easily. It's an excellent value for anyone looking to improve their TV's audio quality, and earns our Editors' Choice for budget soundbars.

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About the Author

Will Greenwald has been covering consumer technology for a decade, and has served on the editorial staffs of CNET.com, Sound & Vision, and Maximum PC. His work and analysis has been seen in GamePro, Tested.com, Geek.com, and several other publications. He currently covers consumer electronics in the PC Labs as the in-house home entertainment expert... See Full Bio

Polk Audio Signa S1

Polk Audio Signa S1

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